"Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious." - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, 1972

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Essentially, the abortion issue concerns the question: under what circumstances is it okay for one human being to kill another. The fact that the unborn child (that's the English definition of fetus - which is a Latin word) is a human being is not a question. The "thing" growing inside the mother is in fact a "being" or it wouldn't be growing, and since a human mother is not capable of gestating an ear of corn or baby elephant, the "thing" can be none other than a "human being". Both science and the law (Unborn Victims of Violence Act) have recognized this fact. That “pro-choicers” elect to use euphemisms such as “termination of pregnancy” and “reproductive health” is evidence that they are quite aware of what is going on here: one human being is electing to kill another.

Of course it’s all quite legal. An unborn child is denied legal personhood under Roe the same as slaves were denied legal personhood by the same Court 150 years earlier under Scott (Dred Scott decision). The Scott decision did not deny that Black people were human beings, it just denied them (if they were “owned”) legal personhood. Thus it was quite okay for a slave owner to saw off the legs of a runaway slave the same as it is quite okay for the abortionist to saw off the legs and arms or an unborn child in a D&E abortion.

Of course today we abhor slavery and its cruelties. But public opinion did not turn against slavery until the majority of Americans began to see what slavery looked like. Abolitionist artists captured the inhumane treatment of slaves in drawings and over many years finally forced Americans to see what slavery actually looked like. Pro-choicers criticize pro-lifers for doing the same but advocates for abortion should be able to embrace the photos of a dismembered and decapitated fully developed child if they truly believe and support a woman’s right to choose, otherwise, they are tacitly admitting that there is something wrong, terribly wrong, with such a position.

Again, the bottom line is the question: under what circumstances is it okay for one human being to kill another? Tina stalwartly approves the choice of one human being to kill another so long as the human to be killed is within the mother’s body. I’d be curious to know if she would also support partial birth abortion where only the head remains inside the mother’s birth canal while the rest of the body has been delivered. The abortionist then stabs the child in the back of the head, inserts a vacuum tube, sucks the child’s brains out, and delivers the child whole.

I would also wonder if she would support the killing of a child that survives a failed abortion. Would she support Dr. Gosnell’s right to kill living children who survived failed abortions by cutting their spines with a scissors (a current case in Philadelphia - he is being charged with murder). After all, the mother wanted the child dead. It wasn’t her fault that the abortionist botched the job. Why shouldn’t he finish the job....even if the child lies outside the womb squirming and gasping (described by Sycloria Williams in a born alive case in Florida as “hissing sounds only”).

In regard to the pro-life side in this discussion, Ramona is incorrect in her belief that contraception has nothing to do with abortion, and this is not a religious argument. Aside from the fact that the pill in general and the IUD specifically are abortifacient, there is the legal connection. Roe was preceded by Griswold v Connecticut. It was in Griswold that the “right to privacy” which was later used to justify Roe, was first formulated. The Griswold decision made it legal for married couples to use contraceptives. Incredibly (or so it seems to us today) the state forbid contraceptives for married couples back then (1965). Why? Because of the special responsibilities the married couple had to the State to produce the next generation and the special protected status granted marital unions to do so. (More on Griswoldhere.)

The State (once upon a time) took marriage very seriously. The survival of civilization and society depended on it (as stated in Skinner v Oklahoma and Loving v Virginia). Marriage, in the eyes of the State was never about two people loving each other. The State (and the Court), never says that. For the State, marriage is about the production, socialization, and education of the next generation necessary for the survival of society. In return, the State grants marriages special privileges and protections.

That the State expected married couple to produce is evidenced by the laws which forbid the use of contraceptives in marriage. In Griswold (who was the head of Planned Parenthood by the way) contraception won the day with the aid of a court-concocted "right to privacy" that paved the way for Roe (and eventually Lawrence v. Kansas).

But aside from the legal connection, increased contraception leads to increased abortion simply due to the law of averages. Those who use contraception use it because they do not want a child. All contraception has a failure rate. Because people believe they are protected from pregnancy, they engage in a greater number of sexual acts leading to a greater number of contraceptive failures which gives us a greater number of pregnancies. And then abortion is simply used as the ultimate birth control. Today, with contraception more available than ever before, Americans dismember, mutilate, burn, poison, scrape, and crush an average of 4000 unborn children every day.

The only real "common ground" found in the discussion was the desire to see fewer abortions and to that end education, adoption, and contraception were suggested. We've already dispatched the contraception solution. As regards adoption, there's a reason parents desirous of adopting a child are having to go to Russia, China, and other foreign countries to do so. The U.S. doesn't have the babies. This fact deserves more examination for in short, abortion is not about the young girl or the poor woman who is not able to provide for a child (a cliche). Abortion is primarily about covering one's promiscuous backside which is why adoption will never be a solution or even part of it.

As for education, yes, but the same education that is used to discourage people from smoking. Just as high school health teachers have no problem showing pictures of blackened and diseased lungs and people in their 40's and 50's hacking themselves to death, abortion must be shown for what it scientifically is. Show the procedures. Make sure that the public understands what abortion actually looks like. Watch The Silent Scream. Watch as the child struggles and tries to get away from the abortionist's knife as he slices up his body. Look at the pictures of fully formed children burned and blackened by saline solution. Education? Let's have it.